Fintech firm Lendingkart acqui-hires loans marketplace KountMoney

Fintech startup Lendingkart Group has acqui-hired KountMoney, an online lending marketplace for personal loans, to boost its technology and data analytics capabilities.

Acqui-hire refers to the buyout of a company primarily for the skills and expertise of its staff, rather than for its products or services.

The move is also likely to help Lendingkart in broadening its service portfolio and develop more efficient and consumer-centric product offerings, the company said in a statement on Tuesday.

Finectar Technologies Pvt. Ltd, which runs KountMoney, was founded in September 2015 by Deepak Modak, Gaurav Somani, Abhi Ranjan and Abhishek Periwal. Its product portfolio includes personal loans, gold loans, home loans, education loans, and loan against property.

KountMoney connects borrowers and lenders, besides vetting loan applications through an algorithm. It forwards the vetted loan applications to suitable lenders in its network, who take the final call. It also helps borrowers in choosing lenders and submission of documents.

In November, KountMoney raised an undisclosed amount in seed funding from Suashish Diamonds Ltd's chairman and managing director Ashish Goenka and other investors through angel network Tracxn Syndicate.

 "KountMoney has been performing exceptionally well in the field of online personal loan disbursals. By acqui-hiring KountMoney, we will be able to further strengthen our tech backbone and leverage the data analytics expertise of the online lending platform to enhance our service delivery," said Harshvardhan Lunia, co-founder and chief executive of Lendingkart.

Lendingkart was founded in 2014 by Lunia and Mukul Sachan. It provides working capital loans to entrepreneurs. The company has offices in Ahmedabad, Bengaluru and Mumbai, but offers its services across India.

In June, the company raised $32 million (around Rs 205 crore) in its Series B funding round led by Bertelsmann India Investments. This round also saw the participation of Darrin Capital Management and existing investors Mayfield India, Saama Capital and India Quotient.

In July 2015, Lendingkart had raised $10 million in its Series A round co-led by Saama Capital and Mayfield.

In the fintech segment, startups are increasingly leveraging technology to disrupt the offline system of lending, borrowing, personal finance and financial inclusion, and are being backed by investors.

Last month, InMotion Media Ventures Pvt. Ltd received an undisclosed amount of funding from online drug marketplace 1mg's founders Prashant Tandon and Gaurav Agarwal.

Bengaluru-based Scripbox.com India Pvt. Ltd raised Rs 16 crore in its Series A funding from Accel Partners and a group of angel investors. New Delhi-based IndiaLends raised an undisclosed amount in a pre-Series A round led by DSG Consumer Partners and angel investors including Siddharth Parekh.